14 DAY TRIAL // When the Russian Federal Space Agency's (RosCosmos) Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft takes off to deliver three new astronauts to the International Space Station this autumn, the humans will not be the only living things traveling to space. They will be accompanied by 32 small fish.
Part of an experiment to be conducted in a special aquatic habitat, the 32 medakas fish will get to experience what their kind never did before – microgravity. This mission will fulfill a long-standing goal of fishkind, which has been dreaming about traveling to space since as long as it can remember.
“They'll be on our Soyuz with us – 32 fish, plus the three of us,” NASA astronaut Kevin A. Ford told reporters on July 26, during a media briefing. The lucky aquatic creatures hail from Southeast Asia.
The manned/fished Soyuz mission will take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, on October 15. Ford will be joined by Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy, the Commander of TMA-06M, and Evgeny Tarelkin, Space reports.